Jennifer Thurik
LITR 5535
Research Journal

Women in Romantic Literature

            When I look at literature, I am always fascinated by the roles that women play within the structure of the literature.  I believed when I began this course that women would be desired objects that men could dominate over.  Although in some cases I did recognize that, I was also able to see women in control of their destinies.  For Bradstreet, she plays the devoted wife who dearly misses her husband and loves her children, but she is constantly at odds with herself for desiring something more than the tradition in which she grew.  In Out of the Past, the femme fatale is very much in control of her destiny and will do anything to ensure her survival.  Poe’s women are traditionally passive characters who are acted upon instead of being active participants.  They are objects of desire for men and are easily dismissed when no longer needed.  Faulkner’s Emily is very much in control of what is happening within her environment.  Female characters in Romantic Literature are used very diversely.  Although the stereotype is one of a woman waiting for her man to grab her in his arms and make passionate love to her, the roles can be changed to a more active participation on the part of the female.

            Coming to these conclusions, I will look at what others thought about the portrayal of women in Romantic Literature.  I will begin my search by obtaining a greater understanding of what Romantic Literature is based on information gathered from the internet.  Then I will examine it from the perspective of Feminist Literary Theory and see what Rita Felski and Janet Todd say about Romantic Literature and the female perspective.  I would like to know how society influences the female characters in novels, poetry, and other types of writings.  What else can account for the way women are portrayed in the literature of the Romantic period?  Hopefully I will be able to shed some light on these matters and gain further insight into what my focus for my thesis proposal will be.

http://www.unm.edu/~garyh/romantic/romantic.html#amromantic

While trying to find good explanations of what American Romanticism is, I came across this website which really justified what we’ve been learning and who we have been reading.  This site is maintained by Gary Harrison from the University of New Mexico.  He lists the courses in the romantics that are offered by the University.  For example, the classes are split into Later and Early British Romanticism and American Romanticism.  He also indexes links to the environment, arts, and general information.  Within each index are other indexes that list authors, their works, and special categories and projects related to them that are found in other parts of the internet.  It is very easy to navigate through so you can move easily from one subject to the next.  The site is also very appealing.  There is not much clutter and fanciness that some sites tend to use.  It is clear, concise, and easy to find out if the information you are searching for can be found there.  There are not many pictures or advertisements to distract you from your research intentions like many sites use today.

            If you click on an index to get to American Romanticism, you have numerous choices to make.  You can go to specialized sites dealing with American Literature in general or specific topic related to the page.  For example, there is a link that takes the viewer to a site on slave narratives which allows the researcher to find various stories and facts related to the link.  Continuing down the page, there are links to many of the authors who wrote during this time period.  One interesting inclusion is Dickinson.  I realize she is difficult to classify, but Harrison classified her as a Romantic. Though I’m sure some would disagree, I think a good argument can be made as to why she should be included.  Almost every author listed has been covered in our class with few exceptions.

 With each author are separate links which take you to specific sites related to them.  You may go to the author’s home page or perhaps hypertexts of specific works.  Many times their entire collection is indexed for instant reading.  Other times, the researcher may just gain biographical knowledge which may or may not be helpful.  Regardless, this site would be very useful to anyone who would like to know more about the Romantic period, not just in America.

            This site was incredible.  It had so much information from both American and European Romanticism that anyone who was unsure about what Romanticism is could easily find out about its origins, its writers, its works, and its environment.  

www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~worp/worp.html

            In researching romantic feminism, I came across this fabulous website.  The site specifically is referring to a poem called “The Unsex’d Females” by Richard Polwhele.  In this poem, he attempts to explain that the rigid views of women held by Eighteenth century society were transgressed by prominent “unsex’d” females who are traditionally excluded from the traditional British Romantic Period canon.  The site is sponsored by the Women of the Romantic Period. 

            The site is split into two columns, each taking up half a page.  On the left side of the page is the poem.  What is significant about this though is the extensive use of hypertext to delve further into the footnotes or springboard the reader to other aspects of the poem.  Like the footnotes present in many anthologies, the reader can have unclear or vague items elaborated for them or allusions explained.  Unfamiliar vocabulary can become familiar simply by clicking on the footnoted numbers.  At this point, the right side of the screen gives very detailed information that either clarifies or explains that specific item.  If the reader does not need explanation, she/he may simply continue to read the poem uninterrupted.  Some of the explanations are incredibly detailed while others simply ask a question at which point the reader can respond to the question or ignore it.

            In this poem, Polwhele lists the names of several prominent and unknown women writers.  Each name has a hypertext link which gives a biography of the writer, what she is famous for, examples of her other works, or additional links to find more specific information.  His point in listing these women is to show that these incredible women were able to cross the boundaries of proper behavior which most of Eighteenth Century society held.  They were ahead of their time and chastised for their behavior, yet, many have been able to claim their rightful place in literary society.

            Now that I have more of a grasp on my topics, I searched to discover more insight into the women that were listed in the poem and women in general, but specifically during the Romantic period.  I found the following two books at the UHCL library.

Felski, Rita.  Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change.  Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989.

            This book approaches feminist literature in a different way than most people have experienced.  Felski argues that one cannot classify any literature as feminist or non-feminist simply by looking at the masculine and feminine traits in the literature.  It is more important to examine the social, political, and historic contexts that have influenced the work rather than attempt “…to deduce an abstract literary theory of “masculine” and “feminine,” “subversive” and “reactionary” forms in isolation from the social conditions of their production and reception” (2).  By taking on this vantage point, she is going against the established approaches in feminist literary theory which tends to look at the canon of literature in terms of masculine and feminine in isolation from the conditions of the environment in which they were written.  Felski argues that when taking the feminist literary theory and applying it to works of literature, one must apply an interdisciplinary approach before drawing conclusions and assumptions.  This is a relevant approach in my opinion because with any writer, what is happening in the world at the time has some influence on the writings of the time.

            Felski does a wonderful job at combining sources from American, British, French, and German feminist literary and critical canons.  She focuses on the abundance of feminist works and authors produced within the last twenty years, beginning with the 1960’s.  She examines pieces of literature which have been termed “feminine” and investigates how the specific texts fit within the social functions and interests of women in a particular historical context.  The term feminine becomes so broadly used that is renders it meaningless.  Felski says that “almost any example of experimental literature in the last 100 years can be seen as “feminine” (5) if one is applying the traditional term that she is now trying to move away from.  She believes literature is a medium that can change or influence the individual or create a cultural self-understanding in everyday life.  It can map the changes and preoccupations of social groups throughout its invention (7).  I believe that is why people enjoy reading various types of literature.  We read for different purposes; trying to classify writing by the dominate gender diminishes the importance of the reason you picked up the book in the first place.  Feminist critics cannot develop a feminist literary theory by simply applying gender terms to masculine and feminine traits in pieces of works.

            In specifically focusing on Romantic Feminism in literature, she includes a section subtitled Recovering the Lost Paradise:  Romantic Topoi in Feminist Literature.   Here Felski acknowledges the themes of desire and loss, a quest, and an awakening of the mind and spirit.  She suggests that the structure of Romanticism is shaped by the Fall and the fact that “…humanity is perceived as degeneration from an original state of innocence and spiritual grace” (145).   Felski uses these themes as springboards to explain the behaviors of women in the works she dissects.  The longing for unity and wholeness emerges as a recurring theme in feminist literature along with a desire for a harmonious relationship between humanity and nature.  It is less concerned with ending the oppression against women than with a desire to return to the pre-Industrialized ways of life (148).  These motifs are traits that have been extensively discussed in class.  It was enlightening to see them expressed here in relation to feminist theory.  This section of Felski’s book expanded on one of my questions stated earlier about the environment’s influence on women’s behaviors in the texts that we’ve read this summer. The environment and what is happening at the time is present in texts and must be examined as a whole picture, not an isolated issue of gender or other speciality.

            The next book I found was not so much related to feminist theory, but rather to feminist history and the writings of the time.

Todd, Janet.  Feminist Literary History.  New York: Routledge, Chapman, & Hall, 1988.

            Janet Todd approaches this book as a defense against feminist critics who do not examine the whole picture of literary history when dissecting it from a female perspective.  She argues against Psychoanalysis in criticizing feminist literary history because it puts the “… idea of woman before the experience of women” (14).  I love that quote because different people have different ideas of what a woman is and who she is must be based on the experiences of all women, yet critics try to separate the two.  Much like Felski, she begins with the literature of the 1960’s and is really only looking at the time period of 20 years from the 60’s to 80’s instead of going back further.  I believe this to be a problem because we are now in the twenty-first century and I’m not sure how relevant these facts are; however, I can understand the theory of beginning from the 1960’s because more feminine literature is being published during this time than ever before. 

She, like Felski, compares European critics to American critics, though she concentrates more specifically on France then Felski did.  In the end of her book, she examines the debate with men and assesses the relevance of academic analyses based on gender.  Felski did a little of that, but not so much as Todd.  Felski’s time was divided up by nations, not gender.

            In particular to my journal focus, I wanted to see Todd’s thoughts on feminism in Romantic Literature.  The main chapter in which this was mentioned was in the Readings of Mary Wollstonecraft whom Todd thought expressed “…an enlightenment of social hopes…” (15) which was rare at the time.  Todd is angered at the fact that though there are women poets in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, there are no Romantic poets; though there were “…prose writers of distinction” (111).  She points out that male critics such as Yvor Winters explained the absence of women writers was because they were not able “…to manipulate the codes of high art and so had insufficient wit to write Romantic poetry.  Other[s] believed that, in F.R. Leavis’s phrase, women were simply not “at the fine point of consciousness” of their time” (111).  Todd believed that women wrote prose as a way of “…inserting their works into culture as allegorical tales, ethical stories and active political agents” (112).  This belief is supportive of Felski’s argument that before criticizing women Romantic writers, one must look at the time period in which they wrote.  This seems to be an answer to my question over the environmental influences on women writers and female characters in literature.  The Romantic poet’s world is infinite and male.  When the female enters that world, it is by the side of male transcendence, a shadow, or mirror of the male’s desires (114).  Women are burdened with a mystification through which they must inevitably act in culture and society (115).  Women writers become the political and ethical historians of the late 1790’s and early 1800’s (116).   Todd bases these arguments on Wollenstonecraft’s writings, specifically Wrongs of Woman.

            I found this book to be interesting, but very one-sided.  Todd does concede that not all criticism over feminist history is undeserved, just that before passing judgment, examine the entire picture and the society at the time.  She also understands that the 1980’s is a time where psychoanalysis is the ‘word of the day,’ but that it can’t explain history by opening a book and applying the terms to an arcane period of women’s writings.  Not everything is based on penis envy.

            My research over roles of women in Romantic literature was very enlightening.  From the readings in class, I saw how many of the female characters can be strong, like Faulkner’s Emily or Jacobs’ Linda.  The romantic theme of desire and loss is central to the motivations of women.  It stems from the Fall of Adam and Eve.  Bradstreet is a prime example of this when she loses her home.  The environment and the young couple in Hawthorne’s “May-Pole” can be viewed as Eden-like.  The young bride feels a loss during the celebration.  Women in Romantic literature must deal with loss because they are not in positions of power.  If they are, it is power that is given to them by men and that is usually because they are sexual beings, not because they have earned it.  They are just shrewd enough to take advantage of the men who underestimate them.  We saw this in Out of the Past. 

            I found a variety of information throughout my search and realized I had to narrow it.  The Harrison website offered very detailed information about Romanticism and the authors who wrote within it.  It certainly reinforced this class and what we have done during the last five weeks.  If I ever get the opportunity to be caught up in my teachings, I will use that site in my classroom.  I cannot specifically focus on Romanticism due to time constraints, but I teach many of the authors and selections and will be able to bring in the major aspects of Romanticism such as the gothic and desire and loss into the discussions.  I’ll be teaching advanced English this year and themes in literature will be a hot topic that I am looking forward to helping my students grasp.  Romanticism deals with stories the students typically like, so I believe they will be receptive to the new terminology of Romanticism.

            Now that I have an understanding of Romanticism, I can turn my attention to the specific dilemmas of women in the Romantic period.  The WORP website was extremely engaging to me because of its format.  The hypertext footnotes were so interesting and led to so many different questions and places to go.  There were many women who were mentioned in the Polwhele poem that I have never heard of before.  Doing further research into these women and their relation to Romanticism and society would be very interesting.  For real people to be mentioned in any type of literature places them in a higher standing of importance within society.  The ease of finding out why they are mentioned is incredible and opens up many future possibilities for further research.  I enjoyed the poem too.  It had some interesting conclusions and some puzzling ideas.  I didn’t study it as long as I should have, but I printed the poem out to dissect it when I have a little more time.  It opened up the Adam and Eve connection that seems to be a dominate theme in Romanticism.  Perhaps is future research, I will delve into that a little further.  Maybe even upon pondering it a little more, I could tackle that issue in the final exam for question five.

            The Felski book was quite enjoyable because she thinks along the same lines as I do.  You have to look at the whole picture to gain an understanding of feminine roles in literature.  It cannot be examined in isolation.  Culture and society influence all writers, regardless of their gender.  It was interesting in the fact that our class concentrated on American Romanticism, whereas she goes into the European traditions which is where the era began.  Although I didn’t read the book from cover to cover, I will return to it and look at the European influences that England, France, and Germany had on American Romanticism.  Again, in her chapter on Romanticism, she titles it Recovering the Lost Paradise.  Here she references Adam and Eve in addition to Milton.  Never contemplating this connection much, I really see a strong connection with the Fall and the denigrations of women.  Depending on the viewpoint taken, Eve, or women, are to blame for the expulsion from Eden and God’s graces.  This definitely needs further thought and will be something to research at a later date; perhaps in connection to my thesis.

            The Todd book offered assistance in understanding the role history played in dealing with women during the Romantic period.  This book was more of a defense than Felski was.  I found the arguments to explain the absence of women in the realm Romantic poetry to be quite humorous, but accepted at the time.  I went back and looked through our class readings and did not see Romantic poetry written by women.  I can’t believe that there weren’t any around.  Perhaps a further inquiry will yield different results than what Todd found.

The most important thing this research did for me was help me to realize the lack of female writers that are present in the educational cannon which we derive our education from.  I came to this conclusion because there were several stories, poems, and authors mentioned which I had never studied or been exposed to before.  Obviously I don’t have the education that these authors do, so perhaps my ignorance can be attributed to a lack of higher education or perseverance on my part to expand my reading to more than class assignments; however, I would be curious to uncover the facts and see if others of a higher education have read the writers and stories that have been mentioned throughout the research I have done.

I was hopeful that doing my research journal on a feminist basis would aid me in narrowing a thesis topic.  That was the case.  Although I haven’t come to a final conclusion, I would really find it interesting to examine how Adam and Eve’s fall from grace contributes to the way women are viewed in society and specifically in literature itself.  Perhaps that belief can be attributed to the establishment of the patriarchal society that accepts the poor treatment of women in literature.  If one believes my theory about the influence that society has over literature, then perhaps it can explain the way women are portrayed in the literary canon. It’s not always our fault.